Co-commissioning of public services and outcomes in the UK: Bringing co-production into the strategic commissioning cycle

Commissioning as a planning, resource mobilization and prioritization activity needs to harness user and community co-production of public services and outcomes. Based on a public value model, we map how commissioners can go beyond traditional consultation and participation processes to achieve co-commissioning with citizens. Moreover, we discuss how public sector organizations can use their strategic commissioning process to support and embed citizen voice and action in their problem prevention, treatment and rehabilitation strategies to achieve the quality of life outcomes desired by both citizens and public service commissioners.This paper tackles two of the glaring problems with commissioning of public services, an approach which has now become the standard way of deciding how to spend public budgets in the UK. First, how can the voice of citizens be brought into the commissioning process – after all, they are supposed to be the beneficiaries of public spending. In this paper we look at a range of approaches to giving more weight to citizen voice, alongside that of public sector decision makers, in a co-commissioning process. Secondly, commissioning in the UK has focused on commissioning of services to patch up short-term problems, rather than on commissioning of long-term outcomes, although it is quality of life outcomes which are supposed to be the rationale of public spending. This paper looks at how the commissioning process can embed user and community co-production through co-design, co-delivery and co-assessment in order to make sure that outcomes are at the centre of public sector intervention, rather than simply strategies for short term problem prevention, treatment and rehabilitation.